As the competitive nature of regulated igaming markets continues to intensify, a focus on the payment journey has been cited as a key way to get ahead and make inroads into increasing engagement.
Speaking to Payment Expert, Christian Reinheimer, Group Director of Payments Product and Technology at LeoVegasGroup underlined that there is more clarity in mature markets as to how they can ensure players benefit from a smooth user experience.
However, he added that “there is still a lot of room for interpretation, which can be the basis for innovation and provide a competitive advantage.
“Our job as payment experts is to provide the most convenient yet safe customer experience, and that can be done in many different ways. The methods that appeal to our customers the most will also create the most loyal customers.”
Picking out specific elements of innovation that could be crucial for the igaming payment journey moving forward, he added: “From my perspective, it currently is artificial intelligence. But not generative AI, which is the hot topic right now. AI for pattern detection that supports personalisation plays a far bigger role.
“This personalisation can take many different forms, from knowing customer preferences without them explicitly telling you (pattern detection), to identifying risk and effectively mitigating it, and improving payment transaction success rates. All of these areas can benefit from AI.
“The more effectively these areas are handled, the better customer experiences we create and the more scalable products we build. A couple of percentage points of improvement in dropped-off cashier journeys will significantly impact your top line. Anticipating preferences and only burdening risky customers with friction to keep the business and its customers safe can provide these benefits.
“Apart from that, there is (slow) movement in reviewing and improving the actual networks our money is being moved on – the very infrastructure that enables payments in real-time across country borders in a safe way. Lots of opportunities, but also new challenges, come with that.”
Open Banking has also been touted as having a key impact in the space, yet reaching its full potential is not something that has been achieved.
“For us, it’s an area of strategic importance as it opens up opportunities for innovation and new products in an area that has a substantial share of payment volumes”, stated Reinheimer.
“Now, after seeing a lot of old and new providers working with the bank APIs, there are some quite sobering results, especially when it comes to data quality via the APIs exposed by the banks.
“So far, I have not seen any good product that can provide a high-converting KYC solution based solely on Open Banking-sourced data. From what we see, there always needs to be a level of normalisation and data enrichment from other sources besides the Open Banking APIs, or else the products are not good enough. In this regard, it is a bit disappointing to see what came out of the PSD2 initiative, which came with a lot of hope for new solutions in the space.”
In terms of KYC, he also detailed that there are key lessons to be learnt from the financial sector.
“Many challenges faced by the financial sector are quite similar to ours in the areas of AML and KYC. Given those similarities, it is quite interesting that there isn’t more collaboration between the sectors. A casino operator acts like a bank, taking in money and paying it out.
“We, just like a financial institution, have to monitor that activity to identify potentially risky behaviour, not only in the area of AML but also in RG and, of course, fraud mitigation. The methodology and technology used for that can be very similar. Quite a few providers we talk to in this area are also working with financial institutions to help them be more effective at detecting anomalies.
“Given these challenges, our sectors’ interest in effectively, but with low friction, identifying a customer is also quite similar. Hence, if you sign up for a new bank account with Klarna or Revolut, the procedures there will feel quite familiar compared to what we see with gaming operators in regulated markets.”
The Payment Expert Summit, part of the upcoming SBC Summit, will be held at the Feira Internacional de Lisboa from September 25-26. Secure your spot with the Early Bird ticket offer, which provides access to all three core days of the event, including the exhibition floor, conference sessions, and evening networking parties, all for the discounted price of just €400.
